I've got lots of minor chips all over my exterior unfortunately, but this one is troubling... It's obviously been there awhile because it's started to rust - I was wondering if anyone could tell me what the normal procedure for fixing one of these is... Do they just sand down that part of the car, paint it, and then blend it? Anyone have a guess what that would run me...?

 

I've heard of people fixing these on there own. They take a pencil and wrap sandpaper around the eraser end to just have a small area sanding. They sand out the rust and get bare metal. They then fill this spot in with body filler/bondo, and sand it smooth. You'll need to fill this area in as close as you can to match the paint layer You'll want it just below the paint to give you space to fill it in. Then use the touchup colormatched paint, Then use a small bit of clear over it. Wetsand it down using the pencil technique again to make it smooth and to get equal depth of the paint. Then polish and wax.

It turned out pretty good from what I could tell, but I have never done this myself. I don't know what a body shop would do. I would think somewhere around the same lines, if not respraying the whole panel.

 

they are small chips...each one is about quarter the size of a dime.

 

I would say it can't hurt to try to fix it yourself. If that doesn't work all a body shop is going to do is sand it back down and fix it.

 

true, I may read up on a bit and see if I can find someone w/ a beater who would let me try before i dove into blind... I just want to nip it before it turns into a bigger problem.

 

Look about half-way down this page for "Chip and Scratch Repair":

http://www.bettercarcare.com/paint-p...ng-clinic.html

 

Very good read DavesZ#3